Traditional Calculus vs. Learning Community

This CATS is to discuss the difference between the final grade results on my traditional calculus I class vs. the one in a learning community with PHY121.

On the final exam, there were two problems that incorporated physics concepts, especially regarding the importance of units. The Learning Community course outperformed the traditional calculus class on both of the questions. One question was a position/time question for which students had to calculate velocity and acceleration. The learning community had 94% of the students get this problem correct while the tradtional class had 80% of the students respond correctly.

The second question dealt with related rates. Sixty-five percent of the learning community students did this one correct while only 57% did it right in the other class.

As for scores on the final exam, the learning community class did slightly better. The learning community class had an average of a 75% on the final exam while the traditional class had an average of 71%.

Comments

Additionally on the physics final a calculus question showed the LC students outperforming the traditional class 79% to 55% even though the students in the traditional class had more calculus under their respective belts. Once again showing that the students in the LC not only do better at physics but also calculus.

Good job, both of you! That is good evidence for the value of LCs! I assume your overall success and completion rates paralleled these results. Are you going to do anything different next semester based on your results?

This is more evidence of the impact of learning communities on student learning. It is generally difficult to make such strong comparisions unless you have a traditional class to compare to the learning community class.